What would Beyonce say to Jesus?
Beyonce's "Formation" world tour is coming to a city near you.
Beyonce is a symbol of female empowerment. All her dancers are women. All her musicians are women. The women stand en bloc as a force behind her.
Beyonce calls men to account for their actions.
In her song "Single Ladies," she tells men to commit. There is no such thing as a commitment free, have-it-both-ways relationship.
In her album "Lemonade," she sings about male infidelity. The scary video of her with a baseball bat smashing car windows shows that there is moral accountability. Wrongs will be outed. There will be retributive justice.
Commitment. Responsibility. Right and Wrong. Moral accountability. Justice. Wow.
This totally goes against what we usually hear: "Be yourself." "Go with your passions." "Don't let others judge you."
Beyonce says to men that being themselves and going with their passions just isn't good enough.
Instead, men need to live up to the standards that others place on them. They need to let others judge them - especially women!
A wider lesson for all of us is that our true selves aren't necessarily good. That's why the advice to "be yourself" will fail us.
We can't be who we are. We need to be better than who we are.
The best way to be better than who we are, is to let someone better than us be our judge.
The Bible says God has appointed Jesus to be our judge.
That's why Jesus calls himself the Light. He is the Light that exposes our failings. But he is also the Light that shows us a better way to be.
Or as Beyonce would say, Jesus is our halo, halo, halo ...